Method and system for navigating web sites

ABSTRACT

Presented is a method and system for navigating web sites. The method includes organizing web sites accessed by a user into a plurality of groups and generating a radio-like interface for selecting at least one web site from the web sites organized into the plurality of groups.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

Benefit is claimed under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) to Foreign applicationSerial No. 2143/CHE/2009 entitled “Method And System For Navigating WebSites” by Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., filed on 4 Sep.,2009, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for allpurposes.

BACKGROUND

Most computer users are familiar with the internet and web sitenavigation. The most common way for a user to access a web site on theinternet is to type its address in a browser's address toolbar. However,it is difficult for a user to remember each web site's address that auser may wish to access again in future. Web browsers such as InternetExplorer and Mozilla Firefox allow a user to re-access a web sitevisited earlier by providing a listbox at the end of the address toolbar. Another option for re-accessing a web site is to use the“Bookmarks” or “Favorites” options provided by these web browsers.

However, with thousands of web sites getting added every day andinternet search emerging as a useful and convenient solution fordiscovering newer web sites, it is becoming fairly common for a user tohave his or her list of favorite web sites. Also, it is not uncommon tofind a user preferring to visit a web site belonging to a particulargenre more frequently than other web sites. For example, a user mayvisit a particular stock web site more often than other stock web sites.Presently a user has limited options for organizing and navigating websites frequently accessed by him or her.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the invention, embodiments will now bedescribed, purely by way of example, with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a diagram illustrating a client-server architecture fornavigating web sites according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 shows a flow diagram of a method for navigating web sitesaccording to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 shows navigation of web sites with an embodiment of a graphicalinterface according to an embodiment.

FIGS. 4 and 5 show navigation of web sites in a web browser with anembodiment of a graphical interface according to an embodiment.

FIG. 6 shows addition and navigation of web sites with an embodiment ofa graphical interface in a web browser according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Common web browsers provide limited options to a user for organizing andnavigating web sites. The “Bookmarks” or “Favorites” options provided bysome commonly used web browsers have limited features for organizing websites visited by a user. Moreover, these features require manualintervention from users. Furthermore, they do not group web sitesaccessed by a user according to their semantic similarities. They alsodo not group web sites by a user's frequency of visiting a web site.Consequently, it would be useful to have a solution that addresses theabove problems and simplifies web site organization, navigation andselection for a novice as well as an expert user.

The present invention provides a simplified method and system for website organization, navigation and selection.

FIG. 1 shows a diagram illustrating a client-server architecture 100 fornavigating web sites according to an embodiment.

The client-server architecture 100 includes a client device 110 and aserver 140. Although only a single device 110 and a single server 140have been illustrated in FIG. 1, it would be appreciated that anembodiment of the invention may be implemented in a multi-client andmulti-server architecture. Further, embodiments of the invention may beimplemented in other computer architectures as well.

The client device 110 may be any kind of electronic device, such as, butnot limited to, a personal computer, a desktop computer, a laptopcomputer, a notebook computer, a network computer, a personal digitalassistant (PDA), a mobile device, a hand-held device, or any othersuitable electronic device.

Both the client device 110 and server 140 may include a processor and amemory. These components may be coupled together through a system bus.The memory may include computer system memory such as, but not limitedto, SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM), DDR (Double Data Rate SDRAM), Rambus DRAM(RDRAM), Rambus RAM, etc. or storage memory media, such as, a floppydisk, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, a DVD, a pen drive, etc.

The client device 110 may include, in memory, a web browser 120. A webbrowser is a computer application that is typically used to access,retrieve and display a web page or a web site. Some of the web browsersthat may be used are Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla Firefox andGoogle Chrome.

The server 140 may be any combination of hardware or software designedto provide services to client devices such as client device 110. Theserver 140 typically runs a server operating system such as, but motlimited to, Windows NT, HP Unix, Sun Solaris and Linux.

In an embodiment, the client device 110 and server 140 are connectedtogether through a network 130. The network may be the internet, anintranet or an extranet. The client device 110 and server 140 may getconnected to the network 130 via a wired or wireless connection.

It would be appreciated that the client-server architecture componentsdepicted in FIG. 1 are for the purpose of illustration only and theactual components may vary depending on the computing architecturedeployed for implementation of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a flow diagram of a method for navigating web sitesaccording to an embodiment.

Step 210 includes organizing web sites into a plurality of groups. Websites accessed by a user on a computing device are organized into anumber of groups. The websites are grouped together according todifferent genres. For example, web sites belonging to sports may begrouped together under a SPORTS group, web sites pertaining to stocksmay be grouped together under a STOCKS group and web sites providinginformation related to kids may be grouped together under a KIDS group.These examples are for the purpose of illustration only and any numberof groups pertaining to different genres may be created. Further,sub-groups may be created within a group. For example, a KIDS group mayhave sub-groups, such as, GAMES, FUN, LEARNING and KNOWLEDGE. The groupsand sub-groups get generated based on the web sites accessed by a user.

In an embodiment, a user may be provided a user input option to enterthe web sites of his or her choice. Based on the genre of web sitesadded the method organizes the web sites into different groups. Inanother embodiment, the method scans the web sites accessed by a userfrom the web history of the user's browser and organizes the web sitesinto different groups.

In an embodiment, the websites frequented by a user are grouped suchthat similar websites are close together. To illustrate, differentequities-related web sites accessed by a user would be grouped moreclosely than derivative-related web sites although all of them may begrouped together under a group INVESTMENTS. The similarity computationmay be based on the distance between the nodes in a ontology like DMOZunder which the pages are classified. For instance, if a page A is undersports in DMOZ and page B is under politics, the distance between thepages is the number of nodes traversed in getting from A to B in theDMOZ tree. Other ontologies such as Wikipedia may also be used, if twowebpage links occur on the same Wikipedia topic page, they can be deemedsimilar. Finally, pages tagged with the same tag on tagging sites suchas de.li.cio.us could also be classified as similar. The similaritybetween web pages may also be computed in other ways. For instance, onecould use standard information retrieval techniques such as the cosinesimilarity of the TF*IDF vector of the two web pages to assesssimilarity. One could also assess similarity between two web pages byevaluating the overlap between common words on both web pages. Differentstatistics such as the Jaccard index or the Dice coefficient could beused to estimate the degree of overlap.

Step 220 includes generating a radio-like interface for selecting atleast one web site from the web sites organized into the plurality ofgroups in step 210. Generating the radio-like interface includesgenerating one or more radio channel-like element and one or moreradio-frequency like element. Each radio channel-like elementcorresponds to a different group in the plurality of groups and isanalogous to the FM, AM channel on a radio. Each radio-frequency likeelement corresponds to a different web site in the plurality of groupsand is analogous to a frequency on a radio channel. For example, oneradio-frequency like element may correspond to www.cnbc.com, the secondradio-frequency like element may correspond to www.ndtv.com, and thethird radio-frequency like element may correspond to www.utv.com. Thereis no limit to the number of radio-frequency like elements a radio-likeinterface may have. Also unlike the traditional radio interface where afrequency element appears only in one channel (e.g. FM), the samewebsite may appear under more than one channel if the page is relevantto multiple channels. For instance, a page on Julia Roberts may appearin the channel ACTRESSES and the channel CELEBRITIES. However, each onewould correspond to a different web site. The radio-like interfaceallows a user to navigate the grouping in a manner similar to tuninginto radio channels.

In an embodiment, for a user to access a web site that has been groupedinto one of the plurality of groups in step 210, the user first selectsa group from the plurality of groups using the radio channel-likeelement of the radio-like interface. For example, in order to access astock web site in the INVESTMENTS group, a user first selects theINVESTMENTS group using the radio channel-like element. After a grouphas been selected, the radio frequency-like element is used forselecting a web site within the selected group. In the above example,the radio frequency-like element is used for selecting a stock web sitewithin the INVESTMENTS group.

In an embodiment, the method allows formation of new groups as and whena user accesses new genres of web sites. It also allows a user tomanually add a new group of his or her choice. Further, as and when auser visits a new web site, the method updates the existing groups withweb sites newly visited by the user, according to their genre.Therefore, the grouping is updated with time to reflect discovery ofnewer websites as well as the users browsing patterns.

In an embodiment, the method allows automatic and dynamic creation of agroup (channel) in response to a user action (search query, visit to asocial networking site, reading product reviews) on the client device.For instance, in response to a query “laptop” or the user browsinglaptop reviews, a channel may be created with websites of businessesthat sell laptops. The ordering of websites in the channel may be basedon the price of the product on the websites, the proximity of thephysical establishment to the user or the reputation of the website.These temporary channels may be deleted after evidence that the user isno longer interested in that topic.

In an embodiment, upon selection of a group using the radio channel-likeelement of the radio-like interface, the method may display a user'sfrequently visited web sites in preference to other web sites forselection by the user. To illustrate, if a user accesses www.cnbc.commore frequently than www.ndtv.com, upon selection of the INVESTMENTSgroup which houses both the web sites, the www.cnbc.com would bepresented for user selection in priority to www.ndtv.com. Of course, theuser always has the option to ignore the presented option and selectanother web site within the group by using the correspondingradio-frequency like element.

In an embodiment, the websites in a group may be ordered by freshness ofcontent appearing on the website (as determined by a timestamp on theweb page). This is particularly relevant when this interface isimplemented for a web portal, the freshest links on the portal may begiven priority for appearing in the channel. Other criteria may also beused to alter the ordering of websites.

Step 230 includes displaying the selected web site. After a user hasselected a web site using the radio-like interface, the selected website is displayed on the computing device. In case the radio-likeinterface is implemented with a web browser, the selected web site isdisplayed in the web browser.

FIG. 3 shows navigation of web sites with an embodiment of a graphicalinterface according to an embodiment. The radio-like graphical interface300 includes radio channel-like elements 310, 312 and 314, andradio-frequency like elements 320, 330 and 340. As mentioned earlier,the radio channel-like elements 310, 312 and 314 correspond to differentgroups of web sites and are analogous to the FM, AM channels on a radio.In the present illustration, the radio-channel like element 310corresponds to a web site group INVESTMENTS, the radio-channel likeelement 312 corresponds to group KIDS and the radio-channel like element314 corresponds to group SPORTS. Each radio-frequency like element 320,330 and 340, corresponds to a different web site and is analogous to afrequency on a radio channel. Based on the selection of a radio-channellike element, the corresponding web site group gets selected. In thepresent illustration, selection of the radio-channel like element 310results in the selection of corresponding web site group INVESTMENTS.Once a web site group has been selected, the web sites present withinthe web site group are displayed to a user for making a selection. Theradio-frequency like elements 320, 330 and 340, are used for making thatselection. It would be appreciated that the radio-frequency likeelements 320, 330 and 340 and their corresponding web sites may varyaccording to the genre of the selected web site group. For example, inthe present illustration, selection of web site group INVESTMENTSpresents radio-frequency like elements, which correspond toinvestment-related web sites. In the present case, the web sites(www.cnbc.com, www.ndtv.com and www.utv.com) within the groupINVESTMENTS along with their corresponding radio-frequency like elements(320, 330 and 340, respectively) are presented to a user for making aselection. In case, radio-channel like element 312 is selected, websites corresponding to group KIDS would be presented for selection. Uponselection, the selected web site gets displayed on a computing device.

It would be appreciated that the number of radio channel-like elementsand radio-frequency like elements depicted in FIG. 3 are for the purposeof illustration only and the actual number of components may varydepending upon implementation of the present invention. Similarly,numerous variations in the shape and design of the radio-like interfaceand its constituent elements are possible. Accordingly, the interfacedepicted in FIG. 3 is for illustrative purposes only.

In the present illustration, a user selects the radio-channel likeelement 310, and subsequently a radio-frequency like element 320, 330 or340. Various means may be employed for interacting with the radio-likeinterface. For example, a user may use a mouse click, a touch option, agesture, a computer keypad, etc. for interacting with the graphicalinterface and its components. Further, a hardware interface, such as,but not limited to, a rotatable knob, may be provided in a computingdevice to control and operate the radio-like interface. Upon rotation, auser may select a radio-channel like element and a radio-frequency likeelement analogous to tuning-in to a radio-channel and a radio-frequency,respectively. Turning the knob results in tuning to a different website.As the user changes websites (by moving the hardware interface orsoftware interface) the next website is pre-emptively fetched to makethe browsing experience better. In another embodiment, the radio-likeinterface 300 may be provided in a web browser.

FIG. 3 further illustrates selection of another web site 350 within aweb site group. In the present illustration, a user may select anotherweb site (for example, www.ndtv.com) within the group INVESTMENTS bysimply employing one or the other means mentioned in the earlierparagraph. This may be through a mouse click, a drag-and-drop option, agesture, etc.

FIGS. 4 and 5 show navigation of web sites in a web browser with anembodiment of a graphical interface according to an embodiment.

FIG. 4 illustrates navigation of web sites in a web browser 400. The websites accessed by user have been categorized into three groups: KIDS430, INVESTMENTS 440 and SPORTS 450. Radio-like interface 410 comprisesradio-like channels 411, 412 and 413, corresponding to groups, KIDS 430,INVESTMENTS 440 and SPORTS 450, respectively. Upon selection ofradio-like channel 412, radio-frequency like elements (414, 415 and 416)and their corresponding web sites (www.cnbc.com, www.ndtv.com andwww.utv.com) within the group INVESTMENTS 440 are displayed. In thepresent illustration, selection of radio-frequency like element 414displays the corresponding web site www.cnbc.com in the web browser 400.

Along similar lines, FIG. 5 illustrates selection of radio-frequencylike element 415 and display of its corresponding web site www.ndtv.comin the web browser 400.

FIG. 6 shows addition and navigation of web sites in a web browser withan embodiment of a graphical interface according to an embodiment.

FIG. 6 illustrates addition of a newly visited web site (www.ettv.com)within the group INVESTMENTS. As mentioned earlier, when a user visits anew web site, the method updates the existing groups with web sitesnewly visited by the user, according to their genre. The grouping isupdated with time to reflect discovery of newer websites as well as theusers browsing patterns. In the present case, the newly visited web site(www.ettv.com) belongs to the genre investments, therefore it has beencategorized within the group INVESTMENTS.

New websites may be inserted from time to time (analogous to new radiochannels appearing) in the channels. The insertion could be based ondiscovery of new websites related to the ones in a channel. Thisdiscovery may happen because of the users browsing behavior orrecommendations from others. The website insertion may also be a paidinsertion, for instance a service provider may pay for inserting hiswebsite between two sites. The insertion could be for a specificduration or could be tied to the user being at a specific geo-location.Websites may also be removed if users don't use them for a period oftime. The location of the new website may be based on its semanticproximity to existing websites. A new website may also be placed closeto an existing website if both the websites are accessed together. Usersmay also be cued to go to specific websites based on their recent webbrowsing/search activity, these websites may be differently color codedto indicate contextual relevance. Contextual ads may also appear in theinterface depending on the user activity.

The above embodiments may be adapted to work on the whole web or in aspecific subset of the web (a corporate site, a portal, a blog, etc)

The embodiments described above simplify discovery and navigation ofwebsites, especially for novice users. It allows novice web users toaccess the web using the familiar metaphor of tuning in to a radiochannel. It allows discovery of websites without recourse to search ornavigation of ontologies like DMOZ. It also allows newer websites toposition themselves before the user based on the relevance to theparticular user without getting into the race of improving theirpositions in a search engine. For portals and other websites, it allowsa more intuitive way of navigating the website. It also allows websitenavigation without typing in a single url.

It will be appreciated that the embodiments within the scope of thepresent invention may be implemented in the form of a computer programproduct including computer-executable instructions, such as programcode, which may be run on any suitable computing environment inconjunction with a suitable operating system, such as, MicrosoftWindows, Linux or UNIX operating system. Embodiments within the scope ofthe present invention may also include program products comprisingcomputer-readable media for carrying or having computer-executableinstructions or data structures stored thereon. Such computer-readablemedia can be any available media that can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, suchcomputer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM,magnetic disk storage or other storage devices, or any other mediumwhich can be used to carry or store desired program code in the form ofcomputer-executable instructions and which can be accessed by a generalpurpose or special purpose computer.

It should be noted that the above-described embodiment of the presentinvention is for the purpose of illustration only. Although theinvention has been described in conjunction with a specific embodimentthereof, those skilled in the art will appreciate that numerousmodifications are possible without materially departing from theteachings and advantages of the subject matter described herein. Othersubstitutions, modifications and changes may be made without departingfrom the spirit of the present invention.

1. A computer-implemented method of navigating web sites, the methodcomprising: organizing web sites accessed by a user into a plurality ofgroups; and generating a radio-like interface for selecting at least oneweb site from the web sites organized into the plurality of groups.
 2. Amethod according to claim 1, wherein generating the radio-like interfacecomprises: generating at least one radio channel-like element, whereineach radio channel-like element corresponds to a different group in theplurality of groups; and generating at least one radio-frequency likeelement, wherein each radio-frequency like element corresponds to adifferent web site in the plurality of groups.
 3. A method according toclaim 2, wherein the radio channel-like element is used for selecting agroup from the plurality of groups.
 4. A method according to claim 2,wherein the radio frequency-like element is used for selecting a website from the plurality of groups.
 5. A method according to claim 1,further comprising displaying the selected web site.
 6. A methodaccording to claim 1, further comprising receiving a list of web sitesaccessed by the user as a user input.
 7. A method according to claim 1,wherein the web sites are organized into the plurality of groupsaccording to their genre.
 8. A method according to claim 1, furthercomprising updating the plurality of groups with web sites newly visitedby the user.
 9. A method according to claim 1, further comprisingdisplaying the user's frequently visited web sites in preference toother web sites for selection by the user.
 10. A method according toclaim 1, wherein the radio-like interface is a software interface.
 11. Amethod according to claim 1, wherein the radio-like interface is ahardware interface.
 12. A method according to claim 1, wherein theradio-like interface is provided in a web browser.
 13. A system fornavigating web sites, the system comprising: a processor; and a memorycomprising program instructions, wherein the program instructions areexecutable by the processor to: organize web sites accessed by a userinto a plurality of groups; and generate a radio-like interface forselecting at least one web site from the web sites organized into theplurality of groups.
 14. A computer program comprising computer programmeans adapted to perform all of the steps of claim 1 when said programis run on a computer.
 15. A computer program according to claim 14embodied on a computer readable medium.